When the "Internet response" is more interesting than the story

It's 2015. What an age we live in, where global media outlets are reporting on every swell of decry from a public that's being encouraged and rewarded for "joining the conversation" online.

Every night our local newscasts have a story about something that's "gone viral" on the Internet. They're covering these stories trying to explain WHY it's gone viral, often with no good answer. It's not the stories being newsworthy, it's the unpredictable nature of WHY these stories have enraptured so many people around the world (what's newsworthy these days is how many hits something can get on YouTube now :S).

The swelling and ubiquitous coverage of Deflate Gate and Cecil the Lion, for example, is not about the heinous nature of the crimes committed, but rather the hyperbolic response these stories have received on the Internet. 

We've seen that the dentist had murdered plenty of animals before, but the Internet's viral-marketing machine wasn't tuned up to its most efficient rates when he was posting shots of dead rhinos. 

But today, good ol' today, we have thousands of people running websites who hunt through the news looking for something they can turn "viral." And they've gotten good at it. Twitter and Facebook are probably the ones benefiting from this the most - - I mean, where do you hear about these stories most often? Perhaps ISP providers who capitalize on your uploading/downloading and bandwidth (they're not gonna stop you from "joining the conversation," are they?)

What's all the more compelling is our digital media devices (everything connects to the Internet now) have become trashy tabloids, with rumours and overreaction slapped all across the headlines.

I guess the part that makes this worse (there's always been trashy reporting) is that people are predictably turning into that crowd of villagers with pitchforks and rakes to scare off Frankenstein's Monster.

One of the most prominent Internet narratives that "goes viral" is the shaming of "monsters" for their misdeeds. Here we are, in a world that's never been more educated, more connected and more globally minded, and we're banding together like villagers in a black-and-white movie to drive away the things we don't understand. 

Very 2015 of us. 

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Friendly Pharmaceutical Reminder

A friendly update from your friends at pharmaceutical companies. There is NOTHING that pharmaceuticals can't solve - - Remember: A pill a day keeps the doctor away!

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Hallmark Rejects: Happy Fathers' Day

Papaya! They're a lot like fathers, did you know?

• They're also pronounced "papaw" or "pawpaw" JUST like fathers; 
• It is native to the tropics of the Americas, perhaps from southern Mexico JUST like some American fathers!;
• The lower trunk (of the tree) is conspicuously scarred where leaves and fruit were borne JUST like ... well, Mothers, ... but fathers are forever INconspicuously scarred from kids, too.
• The fruit is ripe when it feels soft JUST like fathers, who get softer as they "ripen."
• Pests kill papayas, JUST like pestering makes fathers want to kill. 

The most fitting fruit for fathers' day. Happy Fathers' Day Dad!

(ah man, he never reads this blog anyhow)

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Octopus Hockey League

The common refrain around the NHL is "What a classy organization the Detroit Red Wings are," but seriously, who still murders animals, stuff them in their pants, sneaks into Joe Louis Arena and hurls them on the ice, and then swings them around their heads? It's ... the most disgusting thing in hockey I can think of. You'd think such a CLASSY group could come up with something less stupid.

Look up "humane alternative" to flinging the Red Wings octopus, and this is what you get:

Al the Octopus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_the_Octopus



Al the Octopus is the mascot of the Detroit Red Wings of the National Hockey League. During some games (usually home playoffs), octopuses are thrown onto  ...

Missing: humane ‎alternatives

Missing: Humane alternatives, no kidding. This is so stupid.
Simple, arrest anyone who does it and ban them from the arena. And give the Wings a penalty. Soooo classy.


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If you father could see you now

My wife doesn't like this one, she says it makes dinner too morbid. 

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Taste Challenge

The doctor still gave him a B+

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Springtime in the Old Days

This is how many conversations are going to go with my sons in a few years. Remember when Spring was awesome? Yeah, me, too. 

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Reading List 2014

Not as much reading as I would have liked in 2014, but that doesn't mean there weren't some good reads in there! Check 'em out! In some respects, I returned to the classics this year, catching up on stuff I haven't touched since high school (and I probably didn't even finish in high school, lol).

For more references, here are the lists from 2010, 2011 , 2012 and 2013.

Gun, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Socities, by Jared Diamond

Less about Guns and Steel and more about Germs and Agriculture, but, an interesting history, nonetheless!

The Walking Dead - books 1 - 22 by Robert Kirkman

A lot of interesting story arcs that just keep going, and going ...

The Good Soldier, by Ford Madox Ford

Funny, interesting, historical and sad all in a quick story. 

Empire of Illusion, the End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle, by Chris Hedges

This one's a real thinker, it REALLY affects how you view the common acceptance of the world around you. Thought-provoking.

Lord of the Flies, by William Golding

The monster isn't a boar, they never discover a monster and think it's a boar either - - this is probably a misconception derived from watching the Simpsons for 25 years. 

Saving the World, a Guide to Heroes, by Lynnette Porter, David Lavery and Hillary Robson

I thought this would be an exploration of the "Hero's Journey" through classical and modern literature. It was on super-discount at  bookstore where I renewed my passport. Turns out it's about the show, "Heroes", that everybody loved for two months, and then hated forever after that. 

Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card

It's cool, and now I'd like to read the sequels and see the movie! Scott, you're up for this, right? 

Architects of Eternity, the New Science of Fossils, by Richard Corfield

I thought this would be more about fossils and dinosaurs, but really it's a history of how carbon dating and determining time periods and basically it's the history of how scientists conclude how old things are. Still kind of interesting, though there should have been more dinosaurs in it. 

Red Dragon, by Thomas Harris

An awesome book to re-read after watching the Hannibal series on television.. After reading this and a bit of another book on psychology, I've developed a theory that's never mentioned about sexual abuse in Will Graham's childhood. Plus, if you know the episodes well, there's a lot of dialogue in the book that's right in the show - - really awesome.

The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Still a great read, though I feel the imagery was WAY over analyzed in high school. The "Eyes of T.J. Eckleburg" stuff is an interesting lens to view the novel through, but hardly as prevalent as your stupid high school teacher's curriculum would have you believe. I think there's a lot more to be said about proto-Nazism and pre-WWII anxiety laying latent throughout the novel, but that's just me. 

To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee Collins

Until this year, I honestly thought Boo Radley was a black guy. "Mockingbirds don’t do one thing except make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corn cribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”

New to this year, I became fed up with repetitive radio and got myself some books on tape form the wonderful Scugog Memorial Library. I had the pleasure of taking in the following while having to commute places, which was usually a freaking bore.

True Detective, by Jonathan Kellerman

Meh. Still better than commercial breaks and NFL updates.  

Inferno, by Dan Brown

Keeps you guessing. It's not as predictable as The Lost Symbol, and the stakes remains as high as ever. The last line isn't "You've never been to bed with a yoga master, have you?" so that's a wild improvement from Angels and Demons already.